The massive Dire Wolf, formerly the SLS Karkhov, is known and feared across the known galaxy as the flagship of Clan Wolf. What is less well-known, however, is how heavily the WarShip has been modified by the Wolves.

CAPABILITIES

The Dire Wolf has been upgraded twice in its 332 years of service with the military. Most obviously, the vessel has been modified to accommodate an additional DropShip. This required heavy reinforcement of the vessel’s internal structure; the Dire Wolf’s superstructure is almost 20% heavier than that of the standard vessel. This additional bracing also allowed for the conversion of large amounts of cargo space to additional crew quarters; the Dire Wolf has facilities for up to 149 ‘guests’ on board. As the vessel served as the Clan’s command Flagship, and Wolf Clan Khans served as the Clan’s first ilKhans, the Dire Wolf was also equipped with a Hyper Pulse Generator, facilitating communications with Wolf colony worlds or allowing travelling ilKhans to mediate disputes.

The vessel also possesses an upgraded armament; larger, more powerful Naval AutoCannon-30s have replaced the old Class twenties, providing a 50% increase in firepower over the old weapons. The old Class 45 Naval Lasers were replaced with Light Naval PPCs, granting a 33% increase in firepower at the cost of some range. This range loss is countered by the fact that the old Medium Naval PPCs have been upgraded to Heavy PPCs, providing 67% more firepower. However, recent alterations to the Dire Wolf necessitated in the removal of the old Missile Launchers; it now instead possesses a pair of Teleoperated Kraken missiles.

In 3050, after Tyra Miraborg rammed the Dire Wolf, the vessel was heavily damaged. Its nose armour was badly warped, and the entire bridge section had to be replaced. The then-Khan, Ulric Kerensky decided to perform a more complete upgrade of his Flag vessel; the ship’s vulnerability to AeroSpace assaults was still a fresh memory, and he ordered several alterations to the Dire Wolf. First and foremost, the ship’s AeroSpace contingent was expanded to a full Cluster in strength. The fact that the ship now carried over seven times its old complement of fighters required the removal of several old systems; Khan Ulric had his technicians reverse-engineer Kraken launchers from specs given to him by Focht; the vessel now uses a pair of them in place of its old missiles. The old launch tubes were altered to serve as AeroSpace launch platforms; the fighters are stored where the missile magazines used to be situated.

Second, Ulric ordered that the vessel be equipped with some anti-fighter and anti-missile systems. Each arc of the vessel is now home to 6 Large Pulse Lasers and 4 LB-10X AutoCannon, placed in twin-gun turrets and scattered across the hull for overlapping fields of fire. There are also a variable number of Anti-Missile ‘deck guns’ scattered across the vessel’s hull, totaling 46 in all.

In order to make these alterations, technicians had to increase the vessel’s mass by 7,000 tons. Although this is minimal in Naval terms, the feat was only able to be accomplished because the Dire Wolf’s infrastructure had already been heavily reinforced in order to accommodate the extra DropShip Docking Collar. Since most of the vessel’s armour had to be re-cast to fit the new turret assemblies anyway, the technicians also replaced the Dire Wolf’s ageing and battered Ferro-Aluminium armour with Lamellor Ferro-Carbide plating, providing almost four times the armour protection of a standard Sovetskii Soyuz. These alterations also cut heavily into the mass the vessel uses for cargo-the Dire Wolf devotes only 70,000 tons to Cargo-barely a third of the mass a standard Sovetskii Soyuz carries. This is barely adequate for extended operations, but the Dire Wolf is rarely found away from Alpha Galaxy and its logistical chain, so this does not cause any problems.

Technicians also approached Khan Kerensky with a proposal to upgrade the vessel’s engines. In the days of the Star League, the engines fitted to the Sovetskii Soyuz were the best available. However, three centuries later and thanks to Clan engineering, a more powerful engine system that occupied the same volume, though having greater mass, was capable of being built. Since rumours of InnerSphere programs directed at the development of WarShips were beginning to circulate, Ulric authorised the massive overhaul of the ship’s engines. With the massive StarFire-12 engines fitted, the Dire Wolf is nearly twice as fast as a standard Sovetskii Soyuz and is as swift as most WarShips. Because of the larger amounts of fuel this engines needed to move the Dire Wolf, its integral fuel bunkerage was increased six-fold. This supply allows for a year in space without refueling.

In the unlikely event that such an action is necessary, the vessel has enough escape craft to be fully evacuated in under one minute.

Together, the enhanced capabilities offered by the Dire Wolf make it a deadly threat even to heavier WarShips.

DEPLOYMENT

The Dire Wolf always serves as the Wolf Clan Khan’s personal command vessel, and as such remains assigned to Alpha Galaxy’s Golden Keshik.

MY BLURB

In the Wolf Clan Sourcebook (on page 74), the Dire Wolf was described as having been modified to carry 6 DropShips. Since the Sovetskii Soyuz is a pretty weak WarShip and the Wolves were such a mighty Clan, I think they probably would have altered it even further to fit as the flag vessel of such a powerful Clan. I took it up to 830,000 Tons (the same mass as a Liberator, incidentally) just because I like even numbers. After that, I just gave it better weapons and anti-fighter capabilities (hey, the Wolves weren’t stupid. Once was enough, quineg?) to better suit its command role. Since the Warriors of Kerensky series describes the Dire Wolf as having additional crew quarters, I added some more. Although this is by no means a super WarShip, it is one that fits in with the fluff.